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World War I
World War I was a global military conflict that initiated through a butterfly effect in 1914, immediately after the dual assassinations of the Archduke Franz Ferdinand, Archduke of Austria-Este and his pregnant wife Sophie, Duchess of Hohenberg in Sarajevo, Austria-Hungary at the hands of Bosnian revolutionary and Black Hand Gavrilo Princip. As a response, Austria-Hungary (backed by the Germany) blamed Serbia (Backed by Russia) for the assassinations and declare war on Serbia. This in turn lead Russia and Germany to mobilize into the fray, causing their respective allies to get involved too. Soon it became a war between the greatest empires in the world. making it one of the largest and deadliest wars in human history. An estimated nine million combatants and seven million civilians died as a direct result of the war, while it is also considered a contributory factor in a number of genocides and the 1918 influenza epidemic, which caused between 50 to 100 million deaths worldwide. Backround The heir presumptive to the Austro-Hungarian Empire, Archduke Franz Ferdinand traveled to Sarajevo in June 1914 to inspect the imperial armed forces in Bosnia and Herzegovina, annexed by Austria-Hungary in 1908 with his pregnant wife, Sophie, Duchess of Hohenberg. The capital belonged of the most restless province of the empire, Bosnia, because the annexation had angered Serbian nationalists, who believed the territories should be part of Serbia. Serbia had been a threat and irritant to Austria-Hungary, particularly since it won the Balkan Wars of 1912 and 1913 and as a consequence had nearly doubled its territory and increased its population from 3 to 4.5 million. The government’s aim was to unite even more Serbian territory and people with Serbia—and those people happened to live in multi-ethnic Austria-Hungary, including Bosnia, which had been annexed by Austria-Hungary in 1908. Three of the young conspirators had left impoverished lives in Sarajevo for Belgrade. Trifko Grabež, Nedeljko Čabrinović and Gavrilo Princip were all members of the revolutionary organisation Mlada Bosna (Young Bosnia). In the Serbian capital they succumbed to the anti-Habsburg propaganda of several underground organisations such as the Black Hand (its official title was Union or Death), a conspiratorial officers’ group which stood for the idea of a greater Serbia. The would-be assassins were trained in the use of weapons in Belgrade and equipped with four revolvers and six small bombs from the Serbian state arsenal in Kragujevac. It was not known at the time that one of the instigators of this act was indeed a member of the Serbian establishment: the head of the Serbian military intelligence service, Dragutin Dimitrijević (also known as Apis), and members of the ‘Black Hand’ were behind the assassination just as they had been behind the unsuccessful attempt to kill Kaiser Franz Joseph in 1910. In Bosnia, they were joined by three more conspirators: Danilo Ilić, Veljko Čubrilović, and Civijetko Popović. The youngest of their group was just seventeen. He arrives on June 28, 1914, arriving exactly on their wedding anniversary and coincidentally, it's also an anniversary for the Serbs, Vivovdan. The Serbian Church designates it as the memorial day to Saint Prince Lazar and the Serbian holy martyrs who fell during the epic Battle of Kosovo against the Ottoman Empire on 15 June 1389. It is an important part of Serb ethnic and Serbian national identity. Governor Oskar Potiorek '''met the party at Sarajevo station. Six automobiles were waiting. The couple set off in a luxury open limousine. By mistake, three local police officers got into the first car with the chief officer of special security; the special security officers who were supposed to accompany their chief got left behind. The motorcade's first stop on the preannounced program was for a brief inspection of a military barrack. Protection for the visiting party was accordingly left to the Sarajevo police, of whom only about 60 were on duty on the Sunday of the visit. First Assassination Attempt The motorcade passed the first assassin, '''Mehmedbašić. Danilo Ilić had placed him in front of the garden of the Mostar Cafe and armed him with a bomb. Mehmedbašić failed to act. Ilić had placed Vaso Čubrilović next to Mehmedbašić, arming him with a pistol and a bomb. He too failed to act. Further along the route, Ilić had placed Nedeljko Čabrinović on the opposite side of the street near the Miljacka River, arming him with a bomb. Franz Ferdinand's car approached and Čabrinović threw his bomb. The bomb bounced off the folded back convertible cover into the street. The bomb's timed detonator caused it to explode under the next car, putting that car out of action, leaving a 1-foot-diameter (0.30 m), 6.5-inch-deep (170 mm) crater, and wounding 16–20 people. The Archduke was unhurt while his wife suffered a small wound on the cheek. The car with the Archduke was able to speed away and make it safely to the Town Hall. Afterwards, Čabrinović attempted suicide, first taking a cyanide tablet that proved a dud, making him vomit and then throwing himself into a river only to find it was just four inches deep. He was then caught by an angry mob and almost beaten to death before being taken into custody. Franz Ferdinand ignored advice to cancel the rest of the tour and insisted the couple visited some of the injured in the hospital before continuing with the official programme. Count Harrach took up a protective position on the left-hand running board of Franz Ferdinand's car. After learning that the first assassination attempt had been unsuccessful, Princip thought about a position to assassinate the Archduke on his return journey, and decided to move to a position in front of a nearby food shop (Schiller's delicatessen), near the Latin Bridge. At this point the Archdukes' motorcade turned off the Appel Quay, mistakenly following the original route which would have taken them to the National Museum. Governor Potiorek, who was sharing the second vehicle with the Imperial couple, called out to the driver to reverse and take the Quay to the hospital.In the hastily conducted reverse manoeuvre, the Archduke’s car came to a halt right in front of Gavrilo Princip who had positioned himself, by chance, at the exact same spot. Sophie, who was shot first, was struck in the abdomen, while Franz was hit in the neck. As his crying wife lay dying, the archduke cried out to her, "Sophie, Sophie! Don't die! Live for our children!" – but shortly after they were both dead. Princip was immediately arrested. At his sentencing, Princip stated that his intention had been to kill Governor Potiorek, rather than Sophie Too young to face the death penalty, Princip was tried for the murders and sentenced to 20 years in prison. He died in 1918 from a combination of malnutrition and tuberculosis. Meanwhile, although the 19-year-old and his fellow conspirators attempted to deflect blame for the killings away from Serbia, the assassination of the archduke was viewed as a provocation by the Austro-Hungarians.